One or more aspects of the present invention relate to a screen reader.
One or more aspects of the present invention operate in the general environment of screen readers.
Users of screen readers typically have three ways of moving around a screen: the arrow keys, the tab key or special keystrokes which are either built into the screen reader or the application itself. It is still a common experience for screen reader users not to be able to reach all or some parts of the screen in some applications. If all or some of a screen is unreachable, then all or some controls are also unreachable. Users with no vision may not know there are parts of the screen they cannot reach because a screen reader review cursor will not reach unreachable parts of a screen. The net result is that screen reader users can have limited access to applications and cannot assume that a new application is reachable everywhere using a screen reader.
A screen reader's ability to work with an application can be enhanced by scripting. Scripting involves writing code (a script) in a proprietary scripting language associated with the screen reader in question, compiling that script and then adding the compiled script into the screen reader's script library. The process is not automated and for more complicated applications can be protracted and expensive. The process can also be limited in its effectiveness if certain design features which screen readers rely on are not built into the application at the start.